There are pieces of gear that divide a room, and the Technics SL-DZ1200 is one of them. Even now, mentioning it to the right crowd will get you a knowing smirk from one person and an eye roll from the next. Released in 2004, it arrived at a genuinely awkward moment in DJ culture, right as Pioneer was cementing its stranglehold on the digital format with the CDJ-1000, and just as vinyl loyalists were starting to quietly, reluctantly, accept that CDs were not going away.
Technics saw an opening. The brand had been the undisputed king of DJ equipment for decades, with the SL-1200 and SL-1210 as the de facto standard in clubs,…
